Rhineland-Palatinate was established in 1946 after World War II, from parts of the former states of Prussia (part of its Rhineland and Nassau provinces), Hesse (Rhenish Hesse) and Bavaria (its former outlying Palatinate kreis or district), by the French military administration in Allied-occupied Germany.

Rhineland-Palatinate became part of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 and shared the country's only border with the Saar Protectorate until the latter was returned to German control in 1957.

Rhineland-Palatinate's natural and cultural heritage includes the extensive Palatinate winegrowing region, picturesque landscapes, and many castles and palaces.

[4] Rhineland-Palatinate is currently the only federal state in Germany where nuclear weapons are stored extraterritorially under the responsibility and supervision of US forces.

The Joint German-Luxembourg Sovereign Region (Gemeinschaftliches deutsch-luxemburgisches Hoheitsgebiet) is the only unincorporated area of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

[6] The provisional French government at that time wanted originally to leave the option open of annexing further areas west of the Rhine after the Saarland was turned into a protectorate.

However war damage and destruction meant that Mainz did not have enough administrative buildings, so the headquarters of the state government and parliament was provisionally established in Koblenz.

On 22 November 1946, the constituent meeting of the Advisory State Assembly (Beratende Landesversammlung) took place there, and a draft constitution was drawn up.

Wilhelm Boden was (after a short term of office as the Oberregierungspräsident of Rhineland-Hesse-Nassau) nominated on 2 December as the minister president of the new state by the French military government.

A point of contention involved the draft constitution providing for separate schools based on Christian denomination.

From the beginning, Minister-President Altmeier pressed for Mainz as the capital because he knew that the south of the country, especially the Palatinate, would not accept Koblenz, which was far to the north and formerly Prussian.

A sense of community developed only very gradually in the "land of the retort", which had been established largely without regard to the historical affiliations of its inhabitants.

Only the AKK conflict, a dispute over the districts of Mainz-Amöneburg, Mainz-Kastel, and Mainz-Kostheim, has continued to exercise politicians up to the present day.

Rhineland-Palatinate shares international borders with France (Grand Est), Luxembourg (Clervaux, Diekirch, Echternach, Grevenmacher, Remich, and Vianden), and Belgium (Wallonia).

The Rhenish Massif forms roughly the northern half of the state, including the regions Eifel, Moselle Valley, Hunsrück, Westerwald, and parts of the Taunus.

[18] The Takkanot Shum (Hebrew: תקנות שו"ם), or Enactments of ShU"M were a set of decrees formulated and agreed upon over a period of decades by their Jewish community leaders.

[21][22] The gross domestic product (GDP) of the state was 147.0 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 4.4% of German economic output.

The state supports the wine industry by providing a comprehensive consultancy and education program in the service supply centers (German: DLR) of the land.

The worldwide leader in sparkling wine production, producing 224,4 million bottles in 2017/18, is the renowned Schloss Wachenheim Group.

This company is headquartered in Trier, with operations in several locations in Rhineland-Palatinate and three sites in France (Compagnie Française des Grands Vins (CFGV)).

[29] Other renowned sparkling wine producers such as Kupferberg, Deinhard, and Henkell also had their roots in the region, but now belong to companies outside the state as a result of business consolidation.